Choosing A Physician

Transcript: How to choose a reputable physician. Now a lot of times people have an established family physician that they can go to following an accident. But sometimes people have moved into the area and they don’t have an established physician. So if you don’t have a family physician to go to for advice and treatment, and you have to select one, here’s a couple of things I would look at. Number one, do they pay attention to you? Do they have good communication skills? Will they listen to what you tell them and will they write down what you tell them? Do they pay attention to your various concerns about your injuries, about being off of work, how long you’re going to have to be off of work, whether they’ll help you get a note to be off of work, and that kind of thing. Second, you need to consider their credentials. But in addition to the medical license, you can check with the licensing authorities in the state if they have any other certifications. You can also check out with the state authorities and the insurance commissioner and licensing authorities to see if they’ve had medical malpractice claims brought against them. So, look at their credentials, see if they listen to you, and then see if they jot down things accurately when you are providing information. If you are telling them about your symptoms and what’s wrong with you, and that’s not getting noted, that tell’s you a lot about the doctor and that the doctor is not paying attention to you. So those kinds of things are things we would suggest in choosing a physician. And the same things hold true in a lot of respects for selecting attorneys. I’m board certified, have been board certified since 1996. Going through certification is a complicated process and you have to have tried so many lawsuits in order to get board certifications. And as board certified attorneys in civil trial practice, which is what I am, you have to do certain things as well and keep up on continuing legal education and keep up on trying lawsuits at a particular rate per year to keep up your skill level. So doctors who are board certified do the same sort of thing and that gives you a little bit of an idea of their competence.